


Alone

by le_paquet_fou



Series: All Our Joy, All Our Pain [4]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, No Beta We Die Like Clones, PURE PAIN, no comfort in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:53:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_paquet_fou/pseuds/le_paquet_fou
Summary: Those who suffer don't act rationally or fairly. Rex knows this, but still can't stop himself from acting on his emotions.
Series: All Our Joy, All Our Pain [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762891
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Alone

It’s not fair to blame a child. Deep down, he knows this. She was scared, fighting for her life, and people make irrational decisions when they’re in that state. Hells,  _ he _ made irrational decisions then too. But something inside of him refuses to let her apologies reach him.

“Rex, please. Just talk to me.” She’s been trying for the better part of an hour now. “Say something.  _ Anything _ . Please…”

“I can’t talk now.”

“You haven’t talked since-” She cuts herself off.

“Since what? Since Order 66? Since my brothers were slaughtered and sent to their deaths?”

“Rex…” She sounds hurt. He should stop now, but he doesn’t want to. It’s wrong, it’s cruel, and he knows he’ll only make things worse, but he presses on.

“What? Am I wrong?” He gets up and turns around to face her. “Isn’t that exactly what Maul did? And, and let me get this straight,  _ you _ set him loose. For, what, a diversion? A  _ diversion _ ?”

“I wasn’t thinking clearly-”

“You’re a damn Jedi!” She flinches, but Rex is too upset to care. “You couldn’t have used droids to cause a diversion? Break something mildly important that would take time to fix but not sentence us to death? Why Maul?”

“I was panicking, and I needed chaos. I’m sorry, Rex.”

“Are you? Are you sorry? Are you sorry that your actions led to thousands of men dying?”

“I didn’t do anyth-”

“Yes, you did! I had to listen and watch as my brothers got maimed and killed by that monster, got used in a way  _ no _ person should be, and killed in a crash, for what? For you to live? For Maul to get away?”

“You’re not being fair-”

“I don’t want to be fair! Ahsoka, I have given  _ everything _ for you. I chose you over my own family, I  _ killed _ my brothers for you. What have you  _ ever _ done for me? What morals and ideals have you sacrificed for me?”

“I-”

“Don’t you dare say letting Maul loose and start spouting some dark and light side Force nonsense. That wasn’t a sacrifice. You killed my brothers doing that.”

“I didn’t kill them!”

“You didn’t  _ directly _ kill them, but you still played an instrumental part in their deaths.”

“Why are you being like this? Don’t you understand how hard this was for me?”

“How hard it was for  _ you _ ? Ahsoka, I watched my family die in a flaming crash. I fought them and killed them and failed them. I betrayed the only family I ever had, I  _ buried _ them, one by one. I had to pick up their corpses, they shouldn’t even be corpses! You said you didn’t want to hurt them, but  _ your _ actions hurt them!  _ Your _ actions killed them!

“And the worst part? I went along with you. I don’t know  _ why _ I did, but every second I’m here I know that I should be dead along with them. I should have stayed by their side, not because of a chip, not because of an order, but because it’s my duty as their commanding officer and as their brother to stay with them. But I betrayed them… I left them for dead…”

“Rex-”

“Don’t. Don’t think I’m going to forgive you because you had the compassion to ‘spare’ me. If you wanted to spare me, you would have left that chip in my head and let me stay with my brothers. If you wanted to spare me, you wouldn’t have ripped away the only family I knew just so that you could live a little longer. If you wanted to spare me, at the very least you would have let me die alongside them so I wouldn’t be a brother-killer and a traitor.” He hadn’t even noticed the tears. He wipes them away with the heel of his palm and turns his back to her.

“Rex…”

“I need time by myself.” He turns and walks towards the wreckage. He passes the graves, passes each helmet and tries not to think of how that brother felt when he was falling to his death. He stops before the warped main hangar, it’s red paint closer to blood than the simple streak of colour it was meant to be. He collapses, the grief, the anger, the pain, all too much to bear.

And now he’s all alone.


End file.
